Roosevelt University Professor Contributes To New Book That Takes A Look At Chicago's Wildlife

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A new book challenges Chicagoans to take a closer look at the life around them… the "wild life."

Roosevelt University professor Mike Bryson is one of the contributors to "City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness" which is a collection of essays poetry, paintings, and photographs.

He tells WBBM, "this kind of book really foregrounds all these amazing animal encounters that everyday people have all the time in our city and suburbs. For example, there are peregrine falcons nesting in Chicago's Loop."

Bryson says Chicagoans know all about squirrels and pigeons but might not now we also share the city with beavers, rattlesnakes, coyotes and rare birds.

"People come from all over the world to go to Montrose Point or the Wooded Island in Jackson Park to bird watch because they'll see species here in Chicago you can't see anywhere else in the world."

"City Creatures" is published by University of Chicago Press.